Black college basketball coaches hopeful over recent hiring trends for minority candidates

10:45 AM

Some of America's top Black men's and women's college basketball coaches said they're hopeful about recent hiring trends for minority coaches but also know they'll face pressure to win for those trends to continue.

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 made schools vow to invest more in diversity. Black coaches filled more than half of the coaching vacancies in men's basketball and more than half of the coaching vacancies in women's basketball last year.

"My expectation is that we're going to be successful, and I'm confident that it will stick in the years to come," said Duke women's basketball coach Kara Lawson, as part of a Martin Luther King Jr. roundtable that aired Saturday on College GameDay. I have a lot of confidence in the men and women who have gotten these opportunities. I think it's getting harder and harder to ignore the success that minority coaches are having at this time in our sport, despite the fact that success has been ignored in the past.

LeVelle Moton, the coach of North Carolina Central, is concerned that the recent hirings across the sport were not in line with the current climate of social justice and diversity in America.

When the George Floyd situation happened a couple of years ago, a lot of those hirings came on the heels of that, so my thing is always, can these opportunities and can these conversations continue when it's no longer a hot topic? Moton said.

The recent trend shows there is a "window of opportunity" for Black coaches, according to Leonard Hamilton, who got his first head-coaching job at Oklahoma State in 1986. It's important for Black coaches to mentor one another as they grow.

I try to represent some of the positive things I've learned from Dr. Martin Luther King by reaching out and trying to make myself available to help and be involved with counseling and mentoring as many younger, inexperienced coaches.

Kentucky's women's team made it to the NCAA tournament last year under the leadership of coach Kyra Elzy. She said success is the best way to go about it.

Elzy said that the name of the game is winning, but that they are cheering for each other to be successful. "But at the same time, we have to make sure that we are prepared so that we can have success and that we are being mentored and putting ourselves in position to be ready when our name is called and those interviews happen."

Men's coaches are often the focus of the discussion about diversity in college basketball. Black women in coaching face the same scrutiny and should also be acknowledged in the conversation.

Sometimes, I laugh at myself when people say, "Oh, she's pretty good." I'll think to myself, "What did you think was going to happen?" What was she going to do? She's been doing well. She's always been good. We've always been good. We have always been enough. We have the ability to be amazing and elite at what we do.